I'm excited to share that I'm now part of a podcast, Unabridged: Four Teachers Take on Books. We're launching in February of 2018! As part of the podcast, I plan to share my thoughts on the books we cover along with teaching ideas here on this site. 
Exciting times! Changes are on the way. Here's our Episode Zero introducing us and the podcast. 

First of all, MAN, it is HARD to post when in the last trimester of pregnancy with a toddler. And even harder with an infant and a toddler! Still, getting this post (which I started ages ago) completed is the hardest part, and I'm determined to do it TODAY. I hope to post more frequently in the future, even if those posts are shorter and more focused on book reviews. Thank you to those who have stuck with me through this blogging journey. Despite the fact that I had hoped to post sooner, I realize as I read over the part of this I already wrote how pertinent it is in light of the recent events in our country. Okay, here goes...

Last winter, I read To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee for the first time in my life. (I've been meaning to write about it since then, but pregnancy and a toddler have certainly slowed my posting pace.) It was a fantastic book, and I do feel like I missed out a bit by not having read it sooner. At its core, To Kill a Mockingbird shows an authentic picture of what life is like in small, Southern towns--what it was like then, and what it is like for many people even now. I think what struck me most about To Kill a Mockingbird is that while it is certainly a book about the cruelty of racism, that aspect is just one component of a larger tapestry of what it means to be a southern girl growing up in a small town in Alabama. I think what interests me most is that in many places, we are still using this novel to teach about race. My father, who hated everything about education growing up in Alabama loved To Kill a Mockingbird, but I think what he loved about it most was what it revealed about the problems with public education in the South for he knew all too well the flaws in the system. Anyway, my point is to say that he loved that book when he read it in the 1960s.

Here's what I want to know: Today, in 2016, is To Kill a Mockingbird still the best novel that we can use to teach about race? 

For better or worse, I'm always reluctant to post controversial things. While I'm quite opinionated and not particularly "centrist" with my ideas, I prefer to keep things neutral when possible. I know I'm talking about a novel that many revere as sacred here, and I'm hesitant to say anything to rock the boat. But with white police killing black boys on a weekly basis and presidential candidates clearly promoting white superiority, I cannot help but think we have to do more to better educate our youth about race relations. Black lives matter, and black lives (as well as the lives of other people of color) need to be more of a focus in the literature that we teach. I have to question whether a southern novel written by a white woman in the 1960s is the best way we have to foster those discussions about race and the Other. I am not suggesting that we abandon the classics or stop teaching this novel, but I would like for us to take a long look at WHY we're teaching it and whether it truly meets all of our goals. What I don't want to see happen is for teachers to feel that they can check "race and racism" off on their list simply because they taught this novel. 

I'd like to consider some other texts that might work better for us to talk about the complexities of race in today's society. 

All American Boys (Jayson Reynolds and Brendan Kiely): This is a phenomenal read that highlights the complexity of race relations, particularly related to the issues we're seeing in our country today between police and the black community. Reynolds and Kiely write the novel from two perspectives, that of a black boy who is wrongly attacked by a police officer in a convenience store, and that of a white boy from the same school who witnesses the attack and knows the police officer well. While Reynolds and Kiely do an amazing job of layering and showing complexity, they write in a way that is very approachable for high school readers. 

Between the World and Me (Ta-Nehisi Coates): In this stunning work, Coates writes directly to his fifteen-year-old son. He tells his son of his own struggles and of how he feels about where we are in the world today and what it means to be a "black body" living in a world with people who "believe themselves to be white." Stunningly powerful and at times heart-wrenching, Coates brings to life the difficulties of where we are in our country today. ​It's a challenging read for high school students, but it can certainly make an impact, and it would work also work as excerpts to complement other texts. 

Brown Girl Dreaming (Jacqueline Woodson):
Beautiful, gracious, and enlightening, Woodson's longer work in verse reflects on her youth leading into her adulthood. It's a captivating story that weaves together her family experiences, her own desires, and the pathway that led to her current life. Even better--it's poetry! Like Citizen, it would make a great work for excerpts, and it would expose the students to some stunning (but also accessible) poetry. Woodson comments on race and gender as a part of her life experiences, but the story simply tells of a girl's coming of age.  ​

There are so many amazing options out there that can facilitate meaningful conversations about race, and those conversations could not be more important in our country than they are today. While I loved To Kill a Mockingbird, it's not the only text out there that can shed light on the injustices and barbarity of racism. 

My dog is dying. She's my beloved friend and companion, and she's been with us since before my mom died in 2004. She's perfect. Confident, kind, independent but affectionate. She's gotten me through some really rough times in my life. And she is dying.

The trip to the vet early last June was a casual one--just a routine checkup. They found out from their checkup that she had congestive heart failure and kidney failure. In December, we found out she also has bladder cancer. She's certainly beaten the odds. The fact that she's still with us a year later is amazing. And yet each time we take her the news inevitably gets worse. 

She spends more time with us these days. She lovingly tolerates my toddler's affection, which involves putting blankets, hats, and aprons on her. Pulling her tail. Her ears. Shoving various toys and random household items under her nose. "Brushing" her with a broom. Despite their rather precarious relationship, she ventures upstairs and sits in my daughter's room as long as we'll let her--a space she used to avoid as she waited for us to return downstairs. She spends every second we're home with us as if she knows what we know all too well--our time together draws ever shorter. And yet she cannot protect us from the inevitable heartbreak. She cannot stop us from missing her.

As I spend my time contemplating my endless love for my sweet dog, I have found myself thinking so often of a book I read a couple of years ago, The Dog Stars by Peter Heller. (Thanks to Goodreads for the cover image!) This post-apocalyptic, gritty novel looks at loneliness and companionship and the way that love between a human and dog can be the purest form of love on earth. 

The style of the novel emphasizes the fragmented syntax that would likely come from years and years of solitude. It reflects the fragmented world that surrounds Hig, the narrator, and his dog Jasper.  His thoughts--he's so often entirely alone in the world aside from Jasper, so he has a tremendous amount of time to think--are as profound as they are disjointed. “Is it possible to love so desperately that life is unbearable? I don't mean unrequited, I mean being in the love. In the midst of it and desperate. Because knowing it will end, because everything does. End.” 
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Despite the bleak situation, Heller fosters an eternal feeling of hope. The pragmatic, grouchy narrator never stops pursuing what is to come. Like The Road by Cormac McCarthy, this novel reveals the way that humans, and humanity itself endures. “How you refill. Lying there. Something like happiness, just like water, pure and clear pouring in. So good you don’t even welcome it, it runs through you in a bright stream, as if it has been there all along.”

This novel would work well in literary circles that focus on grief (see this post for more information about a lit circle list for grief) or harsh situations. It would also pair nicely with The Road or even the YA novel Not a Drop to Drink by Mindy McGinnis. It would be significantly more difficult than the McGinnis novel, so it would be a good way to differentiate for students but cover similar issues. 

Though it took me a little while to really get into this novel, I loved it, and it has stayed with me. It's a great read for students interested in post-apocalyptic literature. Heller takes a different, more realistic approach to the bleak situation that faces Hig as the world around him collapses due to warming conditions and disease. Hig's life is excruciatingly difficult at times, but it's also tender and full of hope for what's on the horizon.

Lately, I've been looking for ways to utilize technology to accomplish what we as English teachers have traditionally done with index cards for the source card and note card component of research. So far, working with other teachers, we've found three methods that seem to work. Special thanks to Tim Reger and Jen Moyers who worked through this process and created the materials shown below.

If you're only interested in giving your students one option, Google Slides (the first of the three listed below) is the simplest and the easiest to check and grade.

What we did in class: Before we got into the options for the students, we went over the basic concept of using source cards and note cards. We found that it was really helpful for them to have a firm grasp of what they were trying to accomplish prior to showing them different ways to accomplish it. We talked about the importance of pulling single pieces of information for the different notes, and the teacher assessing the project told the students to pull direct quotations only (instead of paraphrasing information). When I taught research, I had them take that approach, too. It kept them from making as many mistakes when it came to quoting and citing in their essays. We used the diagram below and explained the significance of choosing subjects and how the use of those subjects would ultimately help them shape their research papers. Then, once they seemed to understand the way that note cards work with source cards, we moved on the the specific method options.

• Google Slides: We created a template that only included two slides, one source card and one note card. We talked with the students about how to duplicate the slides and suggested that they keep those top two slides as they are so that they are easy to duplicate. We recommended that they change the background color for each source (so all cards, source and note cards, for the source would be a specific color). We also showed them how to create links to other slides in the presentation, so they could link every note card to the source. (That's what the "citation" word on the note card should be used to do--the students just highlight it and link it to the source.) Students could use the Find feature to search all of their cards for specific subject words, and they could choose to print their slides as handouts (6 or 9 to a page) in order to see them easily. They could even cut them up if they wanted to be able to move them around easily.

Slides was a simple option, and it was easy for students to access and turn in on Classroom. Even if you don't normally use Google Classroom, you might want to use it for this assignment so that you can easily share the template with students. Otherwise, you can just share the template with each student and have the students make a copy. They can share their completed source and note cards with you when they finish.

• Evernote: Evernote is another great option for research as well as lots of other online work. They have a great app and a nice Chrome extension (Evernote Web Clipper) that enhances their program. Students have to create accounts, and they can sign up through Google. For source and note cards, we had the students make a notebook for each source, and we told them to title their notebook with their last name and the source number (Ex: Dickson Source 1). Then, they made each bit of information a separate note, and they tagged the notes according to their subjects. They could search by tags or by source, so they were able to move around the information to see what fit together the best for their essay. For checking the note and source cards, the students shared the notebooks with the teacher through an email. 
• Google Keep: I love Keep for many things (if you use Stickies, it has a similar feel but is with you on any device). In this case, we had the students create notes for each source. They could color code them. Then, for the note cards, they created a new note with the number of the source and subject indicated at the top of each note. They could label the notes, and then they could sort their notes according to the different labels. When they were ready to share with the teacher, they could highlight all of the note and source cards that went together and put them into a Google Doc, which they would then share with the teacher.

Overall,  I liked the way the tag/label features worked better on the Keep and Evernote options, but the Slides were a simple, visual way to organize information, and the Find feature (command + F) worked when students wanted to sort their information according to subjects.